Letter to local press: The revelations last week that factories in Lincolnshire packing vegetables for Tescos, Sainsburys and others, are sometimes little more than sweatshops should shock us all. Much of our agriculture only exists in it's current form due to lucrative EU subsidies that penalise developing nations from exporting their own agricultural products. In a cruel twist, it is often workers from these nations that are leaving their homes, to work, legally or illegally, in these sweatshop conditions that few British workers would choose. In Britain today a typical taxpayer pays £134 in agricultural subsidies. If we scrap that system we can save £3.9 billion a year to put into safe, healthy organic food - better for wildlife, jobs and our rural economy. Also in a fairer international trading system those workers would not be so impelled to leave their homes in the first place. It is also long overdue that the government cracks down on gangmasters who ignore the law and abuse temporary and illegal labour. However supermarkets must share the blame. They cannot be allowed to wash their hands of the abuse and illegality in the houses that pack their products. Let us see contracts that insist on minimum standards of pay and worker treatment. Green Party economic policy promises a better deal for workers and the environment in the UK and also internationally.

Martin Whiteside - Parliamentary Candidate for the Green Party